Chen Ge still had a lot of questions, but the boy gave him no chance to ask. He began the countdown.
You could tell the boy was barely holding on. His body hadn't fully recovered, and the red on his clothes was slowly fading. "Stop dawdling — hurry up!"
Only when he got close did Chen Ge realize the door was covered in hairline cracks, threaded through with countless crimson threads that were rapidly repairing the damage.
He thought of the deafening boom that had accompanied Zhang Ya's arrival and felt something was odd. "The old man sent Zhang Ya outside, but Zhang Ya broke her way back in. That means the door can be destroyed — but it can also repair itself."
He reached out and pushed the door open. The world outside was no longer a wash of blood-red. The pitch-black corridor now almost felt welcoming.
"Meow?" A white cat crouched by the doorway. Seeing Chen Ge, it tilted its head, its heterochromatic eyes brimming with curiosity.
Stepping through the door, Chen Ge turned to give the boy a wave of thanks — only to hear a loud slam as the door shut in his face, not giving him a chance to open his mouth.
"There's something that kid is hiding, isn't there? Is he scared of Zhang Ya?" The image of that red-clad figure surfaced in his mind, and even Chen Ge shuddered. This three-star trial had given him a whole new understanding of Zhang Ya.
The violent ghost Zhang Ya's personality was the complete opposite of what she had been in life — cruel and savage. She had fought her way in from outside the door, through the door, and into the room, destroying anyone who got in her way and tearing apart anything that displeased her.
"Zhang Ya should've come out with me, right?" Chen Ge turned to look. Zhang Ya stood about a foot away, the red of her clothes more vivid than before.
His fingers trembled almost spasmodically, and he forced an awkward laugh to cover his unease. "Well, this is something. I went in after you because I was worried — jumped in without a second thought. And in the end, you're the one who pulled me out."
Zhang Ya said nothing. Her eyes studied Chen Ge's face in careful detail.
Her gaze made his entire body go rigid, not daring to move a muscle. He racked his brain trying to think of how to ease the tension, but after a long moment he realized that in over twenty years of living, his total experience chatting up a girl was exactly zero.
"What the hell have I been doing for the past twenty-odd years?!"
Straining every mental muscle, Chen Ge finally squeezed out a sentence. "Everything here is taken care of. Let's go home."
Zhang Ya didn't answer. She took one step closer. When her face was almost touching Chen Ge's, she suddenly accelerated — passing straight through his body and slipping into his shadow.
The black phone in his pocket buzzed. Chen Ge slid down the wall and sat, his forehead already drenched in cold sweat without his noticing. The pressure Zhang Ya brought was simply overwhelming.
"The phone buzzed — could that mean the mission is complete?" He caught his breath, pulled out the phone, and tapped the notification.
"Zhang Ya's affection has increased slightly! Approaching the next threshold — Irresistible!"
The words on the screen made Chen Ge suck in a sharp breath. "Irresistible? Why does that sound so dangerous? If her feelings get intense enough to lose control, will she just tear me apart on impulse?"
Chen Ge buried his head in his hands, caught in a tangle of worry and frustration. The white cat lounged on the backpack nearby, lazily lounging, seemingly long used to its owner's bizarre antics.
"Things have a way of working themselves out — no point overthinking it." Chen Ge stood and pulled out his own phone to check. All communications had been blocked the moment he stepped through the door.
Only then did he remember he had still been livestreaming. He navigated to the platform's homepage and found his channel temporarily suspended — though the account itself hadn't been frozen and he could still operate and post comments.